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Monday, January 31, 2005
A Good Day To Wear Gloves In Iraq
Had I been a potential voter in Iraq yesterday, I would have waited until my neighbor got home and tried Clorox on that purple finger before I, myself, would consider going to the polls. Obviously to me, there are going to be a lot of finger amputations done by the insurgents. It will be a blood bath. Goons will roam the streets , and anyone with a purple finger is going to lose that digit. That's one thought re. yesterday's election. Here's another one: not able to speak Arabic, I have no idea, but I wondered, watching all the celebration, what those people thought you get for voting. I suspect that they'd been lied to. They were acting more like someone who has just seen the Prize Patrol approach the front door, giant check and balloons in hand...than people who had merely registered their little insignificant opinion on paper. Those folks were just way too happy to fit the facts as reported. Journalists kept chirping away re. how courageous the Iraqi people are. Maybe, but I don't think so. They looked more misinformed than brave. Sobbing for joy, dancing for joy, singing for joy, shooting off guns for joy, u-ulating for joy...HHHHMMmmmm. Somewhere down the line we're going to find that all those people thought if you vote, you get to move to America, marry Britney Spears, and live in Hollywood. The reason I think they were promised something they aren't going to get is that here in America where we know precisely what voting is and is not, we all have to be guilted into going and doing it, "Oh," groan, whine, "Alright, alright, I'm GOING! But I don't have to LIKE IT!!"
God Is Always Good
Yes, God IS always good. I heard some television preacher say that recently and he's right. OK, your life is a train wreck, but mine is not. My life is one excellent surprise after another. Here's the latest in an unbroken series of incidents I am able to offer in proof of the goodness of God. Last week I decided to from now on walk to the ghetto grocery store when I need things...not ride in my nice car...WALK. You see, I'm supposed to do some form of exercise to keep myself from dropping over dead and walking is the least likely to kill me of all possible workouts.
Alright last week I ran into a problem and suddenly there was someone who helped me out. It was amazing. I still look back on that episode and say to myself, "That was just unbelievable." It did happen, though.
OK. That was then and this is Monday of a new week. I got out of bed today thinking about the fact that Wednesday will roll around and Benny will report for "cooking class" and WHAT WILL I MAKE WITH HIM? All morning I was a bit worried about this. I don't ever want beloved Benny to show up expecting to cook and ...OOPS... I have no idea what to do. So anyway, I decided at about 10:20 A.M. to walk to the ghetto grocery to see what they have that is easy to do bakingwise.
By 10:30 I was outside on the sidewalk with the collapseable shopping cart behind me headed for the Colley Shopping Center. The sky was blue, the sun was brilliant and I felt able to encircle the globe.
I toiled along counting steps. In the Sunday paper a fitness researcher posited that if you want to walk for exercise, you may as well not bother to call it work if it adds up to less than 10,000 steps. All the way to the ghetto grocery? Not work? Oh my gracious, goodness. WORK!!!?(*&^^%%$$##@@! Right then. I counted and pulled the cart behind me.
Ahhh, yes. Into each life some unpredictable unpleasantness must fall. I got all the way to the ghetto grocery, stopping to blow my nose 4 times, wishing each passerby a happy hello. Counting every single step. It was only 1,500 steps. That would only be 3,000 on the round trip...not 10,000.
Whatever. I found and bought several baking mixes...caramel surprise....cherry cobbler...I think Benny will like those. Then I paid at the cash register. A dear little old lady in front of me asked the bagger, "Would you walk out to my car with me? I would feel safer that way." He replied, "Oh, yes, indeed. You have every right to feel frightened." Uh-huh. I went through the check out and left the store pulling my own shopping cart behind me. I walked all the way to my corner at 38th street.
Here is where the goodness of God came into play. I crossed 38th Street and waited at the light. Then I had to cross Colley Avenue in order to get home. I watched and waited at the light until I was sure it was OK to cross, started into the street, approached the oncoming traffic side of the street. Suddenly the truck waiting at the light blasted on it's horn. I gasped and pulled up. The driver dived across his front seat, threw himself against the door on the far side, screamed out the door at ...oh, my goodness a car was coming up the outside lane and racing into the intersection. The truck driver somehow had managed to throw his vehicle into park and dashed out the passenger side of his cab in front of this oncoming car. How he did this I have no idea. Quite an athletic feat for a middle aged person. Truck driver motioned me across the rest of the street much as a traffic policeman would have done. As I turned to thank him, he waved and jumped back into his truck, and then drove away at the change of light.
Well. I'm certainly not worth two miracles in a row. However, it looks as though that is what I have kindly received at the hands of a God who is always good.
This is a dangerous place. The little old lady at the store who wanted to be guarded out to her car, she was right. In addition to criminals, I have twice been protected from those who might have hurt me because of their crazy driving. Maybe God thinks I should walk to the store even if the trip only adds up to 3,000 steps.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Things That Go Bump in the Night
If suddenly in the night you awaken because of a crashing, bashing, thumping noise...and you just groan and go back to sleep...that means you need to go to bed earlier for a few days.
This morning, coming down to make coffee, I saw that a very large picture/frame had fallen off the wall and crashed down the stairs. Hm... Yes, I remember waking up briefly about 1:00 A.M., hearing a big kaboom. At the time I thought, "Sounds like the front door got smashed in and thugs are pounding up the stairs to beat me to death so I won't identify them to the police for stealing all the fabric out of the workroom." That was what I thought just before I went back to sleep, without getting up to see what had made the noise. Yeah. All the fabric in the workroom, gotta be just about an irresistible target for burglers. Any halfway sensible criminal out there going by on the sidewalk has to think, looking up at this house, "OOOOOH! Must be a lot of fabric in there somewhere." Anyway, it wasn't a fabric burgler. It was a beautiful picture of Lydia at about Benny's present age. Boom! Crash! Thump, thump, thump!!
And I didn't even get up to look.
Biscuit Stars
Should you wish to whomp together a quick treat irresistible to all ages, try this: Open a refrigerated tube of crescent roll dough. Unroll the dough and spread it onto a cookie sheet. Using a cookie cutter, cut out stars. Pull the extra dough up from around your stars and squish it out flat on another cookie sheet. Use your hand for this. Don't bother washing your hand...this is all going into a hot oven. Cut more stars. Squish extra dough out on one more sheet and cut a few more stars before discarding the last fragments of dough. Open a sack of chocolate chips and place a chip at center and each point of each star. Bake stars for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. This is what Benny and I did yesterday morning. Benny awarded himself two chocolate chips for each chip he situated onto a dough star. When I protested, he said, "But I'm vewy, vewy hungwy fow chocolate chips." Oh, well, then....as long as he was vewy hungwy. The baked stars were crunchy and delicious. Benny had eight of them. It's nice to know that adequate nutrition is his parents' problem. At my house he can eat anything he darn well pleases. I was a bit concerned that Benny might be completely insane from sugar overdose, but no. We did a counting by tens chart re. that 350 degrees. Then he wrote about the temperatures of the oven, the house, and the outdoors...and illustrated his prose. Seemed sane to me. Chocolate. It's one of the major food groups.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
"Granmaw, Heah, Wif' Me, Bruvuh"
The other day a news guy said, "This is it, folks. We're over the worst. From now on, you can expect at least 50 degrees plus each day as the high. Norfolk has had its winter."
Right away I began to cheer up. That very day I did more moving-in jobs than I have done all the previous three months of my sojourn in this domicile. I worked myself to the bone...well, no. I'm still fat as a pig, but I did work long and hard.
Today was another hard, but happy day. I was awake shortly after 5:00 A.M., making coffee, drinking it, and then toiling like a person getting paid to do what needed to be done. For one thing, the Christmas tree was still here. Lydia took it apart for me yesterday, but all those enormously heavy sections littered the living room floor. Then there was the matter of all the toys on the floor dating from yesterday when Sadie and Benny were here. Finally the foyer floor was dirty from tracked-in whatnot yesterday. After drinking that coffee, I tore into the tidying tasks. By 9:00 A.M. the floor was cleared and clean and the vacuum had run yet another marathon. I folded laundry and took it upstairs. The Christmas tree sat in its two boxes out on the porch. I mopped all the tile. Sweaty and tired, I took a bath.
Then, to my great joy, Lydia pulled into the driveway and dropped off Benny. This was our weekly cooking class day. We made double fudge brownies.
Benny had to read aloud the recipe. He had to lay out the utensils we would need. He set the temp on the oven, measured and stirred ingredients, poured the goop into the pan, carried the pan to the oven, washed the utensils, and...while those brownies baked...played Spyro: A Dragon's Tail on his Nintendo Gamecube in my dining room.
Exactly as the brownies came out of the oven, Lydia and baby Sadie pulled back into the driveway...they had been at Sadie's baby music class. Sadie was so sleepy that she went right up to her bed in the back bedroom. Lydia and Benny had lunch and began to make invitations to Benny's Birthday party coming up in February. One thing lead to another and we all had a good time. It was about 2:15 P.M. when they had to go home for Sadie's afternoon nap.
Now I was tired. I laid myself down on the sofa and thought about going to sleep. Then I had a good idea.
I thought, "It's warm outside. I haven't grocery-shopped for a couple of weeks. Why don't I go to the ghetto grocery like everyone else...on foot?"
To cut a long story short, I dug the collapsable shopping cart out of the laundry room, set off and dragged that cart 14 blocks to the store. On the way I several times wondered if I was about to pass out on the sidewalk from lack of oxygen, but I made it. At the store I took my time and looked up fresh vegetables, etc. I had to stand in two lines because of a problem with one of the check out machines. Eventually I emerged from the store with a full cart and began to toil my way home. Going back was harder because I felt seriously tired.
At last, at last.... I was within two blocks of home when I ran into a sidewalk block. Some people at the red brick apartments had pulled up and over the sidewalk with an old wrecked truck. There was a scant foot between the truck and the street. A young man came out of one of the apartments and got into the truck. He saw me and did not turn on the truck, but just bared his teeth at me as though he were a dog. I was by now so very tired.... I begged, "Could you please move your truck just a few inches so that I might have a better chance of getting by you without going out into the street with all this stuff I'm dragging?" He yelled, "NO!!!!!" He glared at me as though I personally were responsible for the fact that he lives in a tiny wretched slum apartment. I begged again, "Oh, please..." At this point, an old man, very very drunk roared out of the downstairs apartment, "Get out in the street, yo'all ho. Yo ole, bitch. Get out they and die yo'all whi' bitch."
I measured the available space between the truck and the street and realized that in rush hour traffic I would indeed be forced into the street with an unwieldy cart of groceries. I was so tired, I was light-headed and wondered if I might fall over and pass out right there.
Suddenly I heard a deep, ultra-resonant voice, "She wif me! Granmaw wif me, bruvuh, and don' you fo'get it."
The meany and the drunk did what I believe qualified as shit-eating grins and backed into their dwelling places without any more granmaw abuse. I looked back. If I had not been so dead tired, I might have been afraid. The guy was enormous, way over six feet and built like a tank. He strode over to me, lowered his voice and said kindly, "Now you com'on granmaw. Ah gonna get yu'all home. Whey is it?"
He did get me home. At the next light, traffic stood still as he stepped out with a massive arm up. I was able to take my time crossing. Once at my house, I said to him, "You are such a nice young fellow to do this for me." Says he, "Jes' remembah, You got one mo' granbaby now." He smiled and flashed an acre of bright white teeth.
Another day on 38th Street.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Baby, It's 28 Degrees Cold Outside
Waking early this A.M., I checked TV news while drinking coffee. Shock! Horror! The thermometer had dipped below 30 degrees a smidge. Bug-eyed, the reporter informed, "Churches too numerous to mention have canceled services due to this brutal weather. Our normal school closing ticker at the bottom of the screen cannot handle the volume of church closings, so they appear at our website"...and she gave directions for getting to that spot in cyberspace.
What, I wondered was the problem? Were pastors afraid that parishoners might die of 28 degree air between their houses and their cars? Hm...
Well, it was all good at Casa Joanna. I turned down the thermometer because 72 degrees seemed pretty overly cozy. In the resulting briskness, I felt inspired to clean out ye olde hovel; vacuumed, swiffered, carried this and that here and there, got onto my hands and knees and dealt with tiny spots of whatnot on the kitchen tile, windexed all surfaces in the kitchen, folded and put away laundry. Now I think I'll go ahead and take down the Christmas tree. (Yeah, I know. What kind of person would still have a Christmas tree up on January 23? An old, sick, fat, tired person, that's who.)
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Fees, Fie, Fo, Fum
This morning I looked at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles site to doublecheck what documents I'd need to present in order to obtain a Virginia license plate and driver's license. It was evident that layers of process have been added in order to generate fees...city fees, county fees, state fees...many fees for each level of authority. I even have to get a "city sticker" in order to continue to park in my own driveway. The way things are going, soon I'll have to get a special tatoo on the back of my hand in order to qualify for air to breathe!
Monday, January 17, 2005
Camping In
When camping out, of course, everyone knows that the procedure is to use old, unruinable stuff...or at least alternative household items. When camping out, the walls around one are temporary shelter, a canvas or nylon tent. There is no nonsense about windex, dusting, vacuuming, or, for that matter, the normal standards for personal grooming. Campers feel themselves well served when they eat something mostly edible at close to meal times, are warm enough to avoid frostbite, dry enough to avoid getting a cold, and have something to sleep on which defeats underlying pebbles and sticks. I am not camping out. I am camping IN. This house is not particularly houselike by anyone's standards except for one of those poor souls in the path of the recent tsunami.
How are my circumstances equivalent to indoor camping? Well...food; I only cook a whole meal once or twice a week. Other than that, I eat what seems good at the time. For example at breakfast today I had a cut up green pepper with cottage cheese laced with ranch dressing. Also I poured frozen crinkle-cut carrots into a container and microwaved them with a tablespoon of sour cream on top. It was all good and filling, but weird according to ordinary breakfast ideas. For lunch I might roll up thin-slices of deli ham or roast beef and eat them as finger food. For dinner, likely I would be watching TV or reading and might make popcorn...something like that...I also like frozen spinach microwaved with a top-dressing of soy sauce. Sometimes I microwave frozen corn with salsa or frozen broccoli with a slice of American cheese...or frozen peas with Ragu pasta sauce of some kind. No doubt crazy choices, but OK with me. What about shelter? Well, this place is nothing but an elaborate dog house. However, I keep it pretty orderly and I swiffer and vacuum regularly and it is comfortable and warm, there is plenty of hot water, there's a good bath tub, so it's OK with me although, like the food, pretty crazy. What about ordinary household items? Hm...dishes; I eat out of whatever was used to heat the food. I drink out of plastic cups.
All of this made the mail on Saturday very specia. There was a box with a crystal bowl from Tiffany's, crystal candlesticks by Lenox, and some sandlewood scented items that I can't identify. A dear friend had sent housewarming gifts. I put the crystal on the mantle in the dining room. It is quite beautiful. Even in a room where the roof leaks, the ceiling fan is mud spattered, cracks and distortions in the walls are painted over but very discernible, that crystal is pretty. The only way this differs from putting crystal items in a dog house is that I am more careful than the dog...here where I am camping in, those housewarming gifts provide exactly the visual surprise that would arise from the sight of a dog eating his Alpo from a crystal bowl and slurping his water from a crystal goblet. Surprising, yes, but nice.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
That Was Then and This Is Now
Yesterday Benny played and behaved magnificently. For a reward he got an ice cream cone. He got a star toward the fish he wants...(six stars for good behavior at violin events and he gets a fish). It was all too good to last. No little red headed, red blooded boy is that good two days in a row.
This afternoon the Suzuki classes performed at Chrysler Hall...woohoo, big stuff. They played in the mezzanine lobby prior to the symphony concert. Benny was the littlest violinist. Also he was the only child not dressed in black and white. Benny wore red corduroy overalls, which, with his spiked up orange hair made him the most-looked-at child there. No, Lydia didn't get it wrong. She was told that only "older" kids needed to wear black/white...and apparently all the other little kids stayed home. The teacher put Benny front and center. The concert began. I thought he was doing great. He looked so cute it was shocking. Then Lydia hissed to me that Benny was playing a made-up harmony for each of the pieces, inventing it as he went along. In a little intermission, Lydia told Benny that if he didn't shape up, she was going to just take him home. He cried and said he'd behave and play what the other kids played. The concert began again. Benny was playing even farther off course, over, under, and all around the tune. He was right out in left field. The teacher kept hissing at him to play the right notes, but he sawed on, happily oblivious. Then it was time for him to sit on the floor while older children played the hard pieces. He laid on the floor and waved his bow in the air. He chewed his bow. He poked all the kids around him with his bow.
Dan said that he was going to go over and take Benny's bow away. Lydia said not to do that because he'd howl and cry and make everyone miserable. However, Lydia was seething. Afterward Benny did NOT get an ice cream cone. He was told that he would NOT get a star toward the desired fish. All the way home he got his ear chewed by his irate mother. By the time they let me out of the van, Benny was starting to look a teeny liitle bit sorry. But, hey, he DID look amazingly cute while he was being so bad.
One positive item...Benny actually ate today. Lydia said that at breakfast he tucked into the French toast like a starved wolf. After church, we stopped at Wendy's to get burgers to take home and have lunch with Dan. Benny requested both a cheeseburger and fries. Usually he eats a little bit of one or the other. As we pulled out into the street, Benny said, "May I have my cheeseburger?' Lydia answered that he could have it in just a minute when we got home. He howled sorrowfully, "But I'm so HUNGRY!!!!" Astonished, she pulled over and fished his burger out of the sack. He finished it before we got to the house where he ate all of his fries. This only happens when Benny's going into a growth spurt, so goodby to all his size six/seven clothes.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Lightly Snow
Today we all went to Benny's winter violin recital. He was second on the program. The tiniest little new Suzuki students all had white gauze tied to the tips of their bows. They stood solemnly in rows and waved their gauzy white bow tips to the beat as Benny played Lightly Snow (Row). Benny was magnificent. He played with long, confident bowings that could have been heard downtown. Then he went to stand with the big kids in the center of the back row. Very comical. He is a little boy and the row of heads sloped down toward him from both ends. When the children all sat down onstage while individuals played, Mrs. Stevens went to sit on the floor beside Benny's chair, took away his bow and violin, and held him onto his chair with one arm. The Benny Patrol. After a while the children went to sit with their parents until time for the finale. Lydia wrangled Benny into semi-civilized behavior as he proceded to enjoy the concert, singing happily along with each new soloist. At the following reception, Benny and several of his little friends descended on the table of treats like starved wolves, cramming in all the donuts, coffee cake, and cookies they could before their mothers caught them. I thought it was a sign of how much Benny loves his father that he took Dan a donut out of which he had bitten a chunk. None of the other little boys thought to take any goodies to dear old Dad. I made a break for liberty and waited out the remainder of the reception in the hallway. Lydia asked that I stand between the door to the reception and the door to the parking area so that I could catch Benny if he made a run for it. HA! Benny leave a social situation? Not much. He is the most social child I ever saw, loves these meet and greet situations...and, of course, the table of treats. Eventually we all wound up out in the van again and went to get Benny an ice cream cone because he had done such a good job. At my house, Benny had to run in and go potty before proceding toward home. I helped him get his belt off. On the way out the door, beltless, he had to hold up his pants with both hands. Benny might eat sweets early, often, and in quantity, but he is one skinny little violinist.
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